Juan Diego seniors spend a week of service

IC photo/Linda Petersen

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A senior from Juan Diego Catholic High School shares a laugh with a Kauri Sue Hamilton School student as the tower they were building topples over. More than 200 JDCHS seniors helped out at Kauri Sue Hamilton School during the Catholic student's service week.

DRAPER — The classrooms usually filled with Juan Diego Catholic High School seniors stood empty the week of Jan. 7-11. However, it wasn’t a massive sluff or even a student walkout. Instead, Juan Diego seniors were walking the walk of the school motto “Spirit of Giving” with their annual student service project.

Students spent the entire week working at 30 nonprofit agencies around the Salt Lake Valley.  This year the list included several local senior centers, schools (including five Utah Catholic schools), charities and community service organizations.

Some student even returned to help out at the agencies the following weekend. All together, the students put in more than 8,500 hours over the week, April van der Sluys, senior service project support, estimates.

Van der Sluys visited all of the agencies at which the students volunteered, and said, “At the end of the week some of them joked that they didn’t want to give students back. That’s a real testament to how well our students conduct themselves. They just step up and really embrace the projects.”

Juan Diego students have always been required to perform a certain number of service hours, but four years ago school officials decided to offer seniors something more impactful and “transformative,” Director of Campus Life/Service Dave Brunetti said.

“Growing up as teenager so much of your energy is inwardly focused because of social media and peers, worrying about what college you’re going to go to, how you dress, who your boyfriend or girlfriend is,” he said. “Oftentimes, these kids have never been asked to stop all of that and take a moment to engage with someone with different experiences. For the first time in their life, it’s not ‘Me, me, me’ and it’s kind of magic what happens.”

The project is successful in large part because of the partnerships with the 30 participating agencies, Brunetti said.

“They put their hearts and souls into crafting 30 different experiences for our kids,” he said.

One of those experiences was working with disabled peers. During the service project, 25 Juan Diego students spent the week at Kauri Sue Hamilton School in Riverton, in one-on-one time with special-needs students.

“We are always in need of volunteers,” Kauri Sue Vice Principal Sheldon Russell said. “Juan Diego has a great tradition of providing service at our school.”

In a class of medically fragile students, Millennia Underwood did physical therapy with them, including working with bike standers and stretching exercises. She also helped them work on art projects.

“It’s been a really good experience; very eye-opening,” she said.

Russell said the service really makes a difference to the children at Kauri Sue.

“These kids don’t have a lot of opportunities,” he said. “It’s great for them to have the opportunity to interact with same-age peers.”

In an orthopedic classroom, Carolyn Mullen did a little bit of everything during the week: playing, focusing, taking students to physical therapy and helping them ride tricycles, she said.

Blake Davis helped students enjoy some snacks in another classroom. He also played and bonded with them during their leisure time. The previous day he had accompanied them on an outing to Sam’s Club.

He loved the service, he said.

“It has been really awesome; I’m really sad to leave today,” he said on the last day the students were at the school.

The experience so impacted Davis that he hopes to volunteer at the school during the summer, he said.

That’s just what Juan Diego officials like to hear. Van der Sluys said many of the agencies are so impressed by the Juan Diego volunteers that they even offer them internships and jobs over the summer.

“This has become so much more than we ever dreamed and hoped for because the students do such an amazing job,” she said.